WHAT DO EU CITIZENS THINK ABOUT CHILD PROTECTION ONLINE?
Summary results from a public poll in 8 EU Member States
realized by Defence for Children – ECPAT The Netherlands and ECPAT International under Project Beacon, 2021
New survey shows people do not think the internet is safe for children!
73% of adults believe children cannot go online without being approached by adults looking to harm them
On 17 November 2021, ECPAT, the world’s biggest influencing network solely focused on ending the sexual exploitation of children, released a launch on the findings from research in eight countries across the European Union in which they explored public attitudes towards online child protection. The research was carried out in the following countries: France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden and The Netherlands.
ECPAT released the following findings from research exploring public attitudes towards online child protection:
- Commissioned by ECPAT International in partnership with their member Defence for Children – ECPAT Netherlands, the research delivered by YouGov was based on representative adult populations over 18 years old the 8 EU countries.
- 73% of respondents believed children cannot go online without being approached by adults looking to harm them.
- Nearly 7 out of 10 people feel that there is not much privacy online anyway. Those who believe online privacy does not exist (68%) outnumber those who believe it does (25%) by more than two to one.
- 68% of respondents across all the countries surveyed support plans by the European Union to introduce new legislation to mandate online providers to use automated tools to help keep children safe online.
ECPAT calls on the European Union to bring forward new legislation that will make it mandatory for technology companies to turn on automatic tools to scan and detect for images of child sexual abuse and exploitation materials. Coming from some of the largest countries in the European Union, the message is clear: the public wants action taken to protect children online. They want to see automated tools that can help to keep children safe online to always be used, with online platforms having a legal duty to do so.
Legislation:
- The importance for the EU of ensuring the rights of children in digital environments is
clearly reflected in ongoing processes across the EU, including but not limited to the Digital Services Act, proposal for legislation on the detection, removal and reporting of CSAM as part of the EU Strategy for a more effective fight against child sexual abuse, and the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child. However, the Commission itself points out the need to improve coordination and ensure coherence in the protection and combating of child sexual abuse and exploitation.
- These findings follow changes in late 2020 when new regulation in the European Unionplaced technology companies deploying specialised tools to voluntarily detect child sexual abuse material into legal limbo with the e-Privacy Directive. As a result, some technology companies stopped scanning for images of child sexual abuse and exploitation leading to enormous consequences. A temporary agreement was enacted to allow technology companies to resume scanning, but some are yet to do so.
- The European Union is currently exploring whether to create new legislation that will mandate online service providers (e.g., social media platforms) to use automated technology tools to detect and flag signs of online sexual exploitation and abuse. These tools will continuously check the personal activity of all users on the platform, looking for signs of online sexual exploitation and abuse. However, this automated technology means users give away some of their personal privacy, because the tools scan images and messages to protect children.
- In all these processes, listening to and reflecting public opinion remains central to the work of the EU Institutions. However, the complexity and range of processes may not always be accessible to the public. ECPAT offers this research as a contribution to efforts to build more effective fight against child sexual abuse and exploitation.
Definitions:
- Hash Detection –Hash-based child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) detection tools compare a user image to known CSAM to see if there is a match. The images are not compared directly but with hash values that are generated for both the user image and individual CSAM. A hash function is an umbrella term for any function that converts input (e.g., text, an image) to a fixed-size output, which is known as the hash value. The hash value is a sequence of alphanumeric characters considered a ‘fingerprint’ of the image. Two hash values that are identical to one another indicate two identical images.
- Grooming detection technologies (GDT) help determine if a child is being groomed for sexual abuse. Typically, these technologies are discussed in relation to text-based conversations as explained grooming often takes place on messaging platforms. GDTs usually take the form of keyword detectors or more advanced ML-based techniques. However, certain metadata analysis can also be used to supplement the grooming detection process.
Why was the research conducted?
ECPAT wanted to explore the views of members of the public, in some of the largest countries in the European Union on the issues of child protection, data privacy and the balance, if any, between them.
ECPAT wanted to gather this data to better understand the public’s perceptions on the issues of privacy vs. child protection online.
Messages to the MEPs and the policy makers:
It is important for policy makers to know what the public finds important when developing legislation. There have been some developments why it is important that Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) know what EU citizens consider important:
- The usage of tools to detect and remove online child sexual abuse has declined since December 2020, when EU Member States needed to have transposed the new EU telecom rules into national law, following the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC) that came into force in December 2018.[1] With internet-based communications services becoming subject to the strict confidentiality requirements, a temporary regulation was adopted in July 2021, permitting providers to use specific technology to combat child sexual abuse online.[2] The temporary regulation is limited until 3 August 2024. Due to the unclarity and the inclusion of extra privacy-preserving points, some ICT companies (such as Facebook) have stopped using the detection software. The number of reports of online child sexual abuse in Europe dropped dramatically after 20 December (58% less reports from Europe in 3 months).[3]
- Commission is working on a long-term legislation to tackle child sexual abuse online. In July 2020, the European Commission published the EU strategy for a more effective fight against child sexual abuse. The strategy provides a comprehensive response to the growing threat of child sexual abuse, both offline and online. The strategy focuses, inter alia, on legislation to effectively tackle child sexual abuse online, including by requiring relevant online service providers to detect, remove and report known child sexual abuse material to authorities. The Commission also wants to develop an European centre to prevent and combat child sexual abuse.
- The European Institutions are currently debating The Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, which aim to create a safer digital space where the fundamental rights of users are protected and to establish a level playing field for businesses.
About ECPAT International
ECPAT is an international organization with 122 members in 104 countries who coordinate research, advocacy, and action to end the sexual exploitation of children.
ECPAT engages in multi-country and multi-sector collaborations, working with law enforcement, private sector organisations, and governments around the world to prevent future sexual crimes against children. They look at this issue in all its settings, including child sexual exploitation through prostitution; trafficking for sexual purposes; child early and forced marriage, sexual exploitation in travel and tourism, child sexual exploitation online.
Since 2020, ECPAT has been implementing Project Beacon, a campaign of information and advocacy focused on technology and children’s rights in the EU.
In November 2021, ECPAT Bulgaria – national member of ECPAT International realizes and support the Project Beacon campaign in Bulgaria.
For comment or interviews contact:
Celine Verheijen, Project manager, Defence for Children – ECPAT Netherlands
c.verheijen@defenceforchildren-ecpat.nl
+31 (0)642053860
Amy Crocker, Interim Programme Advisor Online Child Sexual Exploitation, ECPAT International
amyc.ecpat.org
+31 (0)621406200
For contacts in Bulgaria:
GeorgiVanchev,Communication and advocacy consultant, Project Beacon, gvanchev@yahoo.com, +359 878 400071
Lydia Zagorova,Chairperson, ECPAT Bulgaria – Neglected Children Society; ecpatbulgaria@gmail.com, +359 878 400074
[1] https://www.stibbe.com/en/news/2019/january/the-european-electronic-communications-code-is-now-in-force–10-takeaways
[2] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-promoting-our-european-way-of-life/file-temporary-derogation-from-the-e-privacy-directive-for-ott-services
[3] https://www.missingkids.org/blog/2020/we-are-in-danger-of-losing-the-global-battle-for-child-safety